Police hunting for shooters who killed 1, injured 6 after being rejected by lesbians

Police in Minneapolis, Minnesota are searching for two men who, last week, shot up an LGBTQ+-friendly punk music venue after two lesbian women allegedly rejected one of the men’s advances.

The Minneapolis Police Department has said it had developed “strong leads” in its investigation into the August 11 nighttime shooting at Nudieland, a house that became a music venue popular with LGBTQ+ fans of punk rock. The shooting injured six people and killed a 35-year-old cis male musician named August Golden.

Related:

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The shooting occurred during a double celebration for a band’s new recording and someone’s birthday. A transgender Nudieland patron named Aaron Diveley told the news website Reckon that the shooting was “a hate crime,” though police have not revealed a suspected motive.

The site said that the shooter had attempted to flirt with two lesbian women who expressed disinterest and told him not to touch them. The man reportedly got upset, walked away, and then returned less than a minute later to begin shooting.

“Two young men came in, started hitting on people that were not open to being hit on. And after being reprimanded and told to. like. step down, they grew increasingly violent, and did what they did,” Dively told CBS News.

A shooting survivor named Felix Jardine told CBS, “I ran and hid behind the garage, and then the shots stopped. And there was a lot more screaming. And I ran to see if [my friend] was OK. And they were with August, and August was bleeding out really fast. There are people on the ground, just complete chaos, it was a total nightmare.”

Police are currently searching for two male suspects. While investigators reportedly found 10 bullet shell casings at the venue, it’s unclear if the second suspect also used a firearm or merely accompanied the shooter.

A 21-year-old trans woman named Quinn McClurg told Reckon, “[Do-it-yourself punk] shows are one of the only regularly safe places for trans folks, queer folks, punks, and everybody to get together and socialize. Because everybody you know and love is there. People you’ve worked in the encampments with, people you’ve done protests with — everybody’s there.”

A nearby music venue, Palmer’s Bar, has also held a fundraiser benefit for those injured. Christy Costello, the bar’s music booker, told the Star Tribune that local venues depend on the sort of young talent and bands that first get their start at do-it-yourself house venues like Nudieland. A separate GoFundMe for the victims has raised nearly $190,000 as of Wednesday evening.

Venus DeMars, a local trans musician who regularly patronized Nudieland, wrote in a public Facebook post, “I am so terribly disturbed by what seems to be never-ending hateful rhetoric directed towards my community. I so deeply feel the depression my queer, punk, trans community feels today. I feel the loss, the fear, and the despair. My dear, dear Minneapolis queer, punk, trans community. I also want to say, we WILL survive this.”

“I have watched the world change. I have seen, what I’d imagined impossible happen. How amazingly my community has come into itself. And I have seen how remarkably embracing the world can be,” DeMars continued. “In my opinion, art has accomplished this. Music has accomplished this. The bravery and willingness of those in my community, along those many years, to not hide. To not shut down, To remain as out and as loud as possible.”

In response to the shooting, Minneapolis’ gay leather bar, The Eagle, announced that it would take extra security measures to protect people enjoying the Gay Softball World Series scheduled to take place at the end of August.